1. Chapter 7: Business Skills for Technical Professionals
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional
Second Edition

2. Objectives
Understand how to acquire and use business skills in the workplace
Understand how to use business skills to identify and justify improvement opportunities
Develop presentation skills you can use to communicate
Learn advanced business skills such as managing projects, conducting a cost benefit analysis, and calculating return on investment (ROI)
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e

3. Business Skills for Technical Professionals
Technical professionals must acquire business skill such as:
The ability to understand and speak the language of business
The ability to analyze business problems and identify improvement opportunities
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4. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace
Business skills are useful and increasingly required:
The business world is extremely competitive
Trends such as automation and outsourcing mean that companies have fewer job positions
People who have a mix of skills—including business, technical, soft, and self-management skills—create the greatest opportunities for themselves
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5. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Some business skills are particularly relevant to technical professionals and transferable to other professions
Some skills are acquired by observing and inquiring about the activities that occur where you work
Business skills will grow with education and experience
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6. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
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7. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Customer service
Skills such as understanding the importance of meeting customers’ needs and knowing how to manage their expectations are imperative
Process management
The need for people who have experience developing, documenting, and continuously improving processes is increasing
Listening and communication
Two of the most basic skills needed in today’s fast-paced business world
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8. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Writing
An increasingly important business skill when using and instant messenger
Problem-solving
Imperative skill in the support industry and highly valued
Financial management
The need for these skills increases as technical professionals advance to team leader or supervisory positions
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9. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Making presentations
Presentations are an accepted and effective way to communicate information and gain acceptance for ideas
Project management
An understanding of concepts makes it possible for a person to be effective whether he or she is a member of a project team or responsible for planning and managing a project
Conflict management
Important when working in a team setting
An excellent life skill that can be improved with practice
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10. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Basic business skills can be learned on-the-job, through self-study, or in the classroom
Listening, communication, writing
These and other skills are relatively universal and can be used regardless of a person’s chosen profession
Customer service, problem solving, project management, conflict management, time management
Skills such as financial management and human resources management are also important and become even more important as people advance in their careers
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11. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
An understanding of ethics is another increasingly important business skill
Ethics - The rules and standards that govern the conduct of a person or group of people
Ethical behavior is behavior that conforms to generally accepted or stated principles of right and wrong
The policies of a department or company dictate what is right and wrong behavior and may vary from one department or company to the next
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12. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
The business skills required for a help desk job vary based on:
The industry in which the company is engaged
The job category
The specific skills a company requires are determined by the job description
Most employers do not expect technical professionals to have fully developed business skills when they first join the workforce
Some basic knowledge, such as service industry knowledge, and a willingness to learn are viewed as a positive.
Some companies also desire industry knowledge, or business skills that are unique to the industry or profession the help desk supports
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13. Acquiring and Using Business Skills in the Workplace (continued)
Managers are increasingly requiring technical professionals who want to advance in their careers to hone and use business skills
People applying for help desk management positions are also expected to have more advanced business skills and experience
Developing and demonstrating business skills is an effective way to differentiate yourself from the competition and increase your opportunities
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14. Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business
The term business has many meanings and encompasses a broad range of disciplines
Business - A commercial enterprise or establishment
Has profit as its chief aim
The term may also be used to describe a person’s occupation, work, or trade
Nonprofit – A company established for charitable, educational, or humanitarian purposes rather than for making money; also known as not-for-profit
The business skills required to work for nonprofit and for-profit companies are similar
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15. Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business (continued)
Learn about your company (or a company where you want to work)
Its mission
The industry
Its competitors
Study the words that are used to describe your company, its mission, and its goals
A “big picture” perspective will help you understand why certain technologies or data are viewed as highly important (strategic), or why certain projects are viewed as essential to the business (mission critical)
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16. Understanding and Speaking the Language of Business (continued)
IT and business alignment – A process aimed at ensuring that information technologies support corporate goals and objectives
Learning about your business will help you:
determine ways technology can help your customers achieve their goals
Help business people understand available technologies and how best to use them
Ensure that new technologies offer real value to the business
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17. Using Business Skills to Identify and Justify Improvement Opportunities
Help Desk professionals have a unique opportunity to support the goals of business by working to:
Eliminate or minimize the impact of business problems
Identify improvement opportunities
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18. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities
Help desk tools and technologies are useless if they do not provide and produce meaningful information
People working in a help desk must understand clearly that the data they collect on a daily basis becomes information
This information is used to:
Track outstanding problems and requests
Measure analysts personal performance
Measure the overall performance of the help desk
Measure customer satisfaction with the company
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19. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Help desks divide information into various data categories
Data categories tend to be similar from help desk to help desk because most help desks perform similar processes
Each help desk captures additional data categories specific to its business or industry
Data are typically captured through fields in the help desk’s incident tracking and problem management system
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20. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
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21. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
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22. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Customer Data - Identifying details about a customer, including the customer’s name, telephone number, address, department or company name, address or location, customer number, and employee number or user ID
All of the fields that describe a single customer are stored in a customer record
Customer records are linked to problem records by a unique key field
Used to quickly identify a customer contacting the help desk and to research a customer’s history of problems
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23. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Problem Data - The details of a single problem including the problem category (such as hardware or software), affected component or system (such as a printer or a monitor), symptom, date and time problem occurred, date and time problem was logged, analyst who logged problem, problem owner, description, and severity
All of the fields that describe a single problem are stored in a problem record
Used to research and track trends or to search the knowledge base for solutions
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24. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
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25. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Status Data - Details about a problem that are used to track problems not resolved at level one including problem status (such as assigned, awaiting parts, resolved, closed), the person or group assigned, date and time assigned, and priority
Stored in fields in the problem record
Record is continuously updated as new data becomes available
Used to report on the status of outstanding problems and to monitor SLA attainment
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26. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
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27. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Resolution data – Details about how a problem was resolved including the person or group who resolved the problem, resolution description, date and time resolved, customer satisfaction indicator, date and time closed, and root cause
Stored in fields in the problem record
Record is continuously updated as new data becomes available
Used to track service level compliance and perform root cause analysis
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28. Using Data to Identify and Quantify Improvement Opportunities (continued)
Forward-thinking companies use data to spot trends and discover the root cause of problems
People working in a help desk have the opportunity to continuously capture the data and information needed to determine customers’ wants and needs
Successful help desks seize this opportunity by designing and implementing processes and technologies that enable them to capture and use customer information efficiently
People interested in a support-industry career must learn how to interpret data, share and add value to information
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29. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis
Performing Trend Analysis:
Trend analysis - A methodical way of determining and, when possible, forecasting service trends
Trends can be positive or negative
Trend reports provide help desk management and staff with the information needed to formulate improvement plans and communicate achievements
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30. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
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31. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
Trend analysis involves looking at a set of data and viewing it from different angles in an effort to identify a trend
Trend reports make it possible to:
Determine the most common and frequently occurring problems
Identify anomalies
Anomaly - A deviation or departure from the average or the norm
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32. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
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33. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
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34. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
Performing Root Cause Analysis:
Used to determine why problems are occurring so the company can take steps to prevent problems in the future
Root cause analysis - A methodical way of determining the root cause of problems
Root cause - The most basic reason for an undesirable condition or problem, which, if eliminated or corrected, would prevent the problem from existing or occurring
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35. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
Determining the root cause:
Takes time
Requires analysts to look beyond the obvious and seek an answer to the question, “Why?”
Root cause is:
Captured in a data field when problems are closed
Supplied by the person who identified the solution
Root cause is not always related specifically to hardware products or software systems
It is often related to how people are implementing or using technology
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36. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
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37. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
Many companies subscribe to the “80/20 rule”
Relative to problem management, the 80/20 rule means that 20% of the defects or failures that occur cause 80% of the problems
By identifying and eliminating the root cause of the most common defects or failures, companies can:
Considerably reduce the number of recurring problems
Focus on eliminating the problems that are the most costly to the organization and that have the greatest impact on their customers
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38. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
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39. Performing Trend and Root Cause Analysis (continued)
Trend and root cause analysis work hand-in-hand
They can be used reactively or proactively
Root cause analysis is the more difficult of the two disciplines
Companies that fail to capture and then eliminate root cause put themselves at risk for the problem to happen again
The fact that there is a solution in the knowledge base does not make it okay for a problem to recur
Ultimately, customers would prefer that problems be prevented
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40. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements
Help desk managers are under pressure to:
Demonstrate the value of help desk services
Justify the funds and resources the team needs to deliver those services
Members of the help desk team must learn to:
Justify and quantify the benefits of their ideas in financial terms
Budget - The total sum of money allocated for a particular purpose (such as a project) or period of time (such as a year)
Good budgeting ensures that the money does not run out before the goal is reached or the period ends
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41. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
To justify improvement initiatives:
State the expected benefits in the form of goals
Express those goals as metrics
Metrics typically assess characteristics such as:
Cost
Customer satisfaction
Efficiency
Effectiveness
Employee satisfaction
Quality
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42. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
Some characteristics are tangible, or capable of being measured precisely
Cost, efficiency
Other characteristics are intangible, or more difficult to measure precisely
Customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, quality
Intangible characteristics reflect perception and are therefore more subjective
Both tangible and intangible goals are important
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43. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
By establishing both tangible and intangible goals with goals such as quality and customer satisfaction as primary objectives, companies can achieve a balanced, customer-oriented result
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44. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
Calculating a Labor Savings:
“Time is money” - Labor often represents a company’s single greatest expense
Labor and benefits usually represent 60% to 80% of a help desk’s overall costs
Saving time, will in turn, save money
To calculate an hourly rate:
$40,000 / 2,080 = $19
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45. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
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46. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
When calculating savings, accurate data are important
When actual data are not available, industry standard data (such as hourly rate) can be useful
Cost per contact is a financial measure frequently used in the support industry
Cost per contact - The total cost of operating a help desk for a given time period (including salaries, benefits, facilities, and equipment) divided by the total number of contacts (such as calls, s, faxes, and Web requests) received during that period
Contact volume - The total number of contacts received during a given period of time
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47. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
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48. Communicating the Financial Benefits of Improvements (continued)
Cost per contact can be used to:
Benchmark a help desk’s services against other help desks or the industry average
Compare the cost of operating a help desk to a service agency (outsourcer)
Benchmarking - The process of comparing the help desk’s performance metrics and practices to those of another help desk in an effort to identify improvement opportunities
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49. Using Presentations to Communicate
Presentations are an important form of communication in today’s business world
They are used daily to:
Convey information
Promote the benefits of ideas and opportunities
Win approval for ideas and opportunities
For professionals, presentations are an important way to build credibility
The ability to make presentations can greatly influence a person’s standing in his or her company, community, and industry
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50. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
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51. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
The setting in which presentations are made may vary
Audience members are being brought together for a reason
Their approval is needed to move forward on a project
Their input is needed to formulate an action plan
You need to make them aware of something or teach them something
There is a reason you are making the presentation
You are the expert!
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52. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
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53. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
Step 1. State Your Objective:
A clearly stated objective:
Determines whether a presentation is needed
Focuses your thoughts and the thoughts of your audience
A single sentence should be all you need to state your objective
Step 2. Know Your Audience:
This step greatly influences all future steps
Determine what is important to your audience members
Understand the background of your audience
When in doubt, ask
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54. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
Step 3. Design the Presentation:
Create an outline with an introduction, body, and closing
Research your topic and collect facts that support your objective
Develop visual aids that support and communicate your ideas
Visual aids should not be your presentation
Anticipate the questions your audience may ask and use visual aids to answer those questions
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55. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
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56. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
Step 4. Rehearse the Presentation:
Make sure that you can cover your material in the time allotted
Make sure that you leave time for questions
Rehearsing is different than memorizing
Memorize your introduction and closing
They are critical to setting audience expectations
Memorize only the key points you want to make during the body of your presentation
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57. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
Step 5. Deliver the Presentation:
Be prepared, confident, and enthusiastic
When time is a constraint, politely ask your audience at the start of the presentation to hold their questions until the end
If you run out of time for questions at the end, let the audience know that you will be happy to answer their questions offline
When possible, try to handle questions when asked
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58. Using Presentations to Communicate (continued)
Step 6. Learn from the Experience:
Most mistakes made when making presentations are the result of overlooking one of the steps previously discussed
Take time after each presentation to evaluate your performance and determine how you can improve
If evaluations are provided, view the feedback you receive as constructive
Presentation skills are essential if you want to educate, inform, obtain information from, build consensus with, and communicate with others
The more often you present and the more varied the setting, subject matter, and audience are, the more comfortable you become
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59. Advance Business Skills for Technical Professionals
Advanced business skills are critical skills for more senior technical professionals
Managing projects
Conducting a cost benefit analysis
Calculating ROI
The need for these skills may vary from company to company
Understanding of these concepts will enable you to make the most of learning and growth opportunities
To excel at advanced business skills, technical professionals require a blend of formal training and experience
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60. Managing Projects
People in a help desk are continuously exposed to projects
Project - A distinct unit of work aimed at producing a specific result or end product
Projects can be small or quite large
Help desk professionals may:
Complete projects
Support the end product of a project
Initiate projects
Technical professionals must understand:
Project management concepts and tools
The roles that people play within a project
How to work successfully on a project team
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61. Managing Projects (continued)
Project management - The process of planning and managing a project
All projects, regardless of their size, require some planning and have the following:
A clearly defined scope
Well-defined deliverables
Clearly defined acceptance criteria
An established start date
An established end point
Scope - A general description of the work to be done
Acceptance criteria - The conditions that must be met before the project deliverables are accepted
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62. Managing Projects (continued)
For small projects, the project scope may be a request
For larger projects, the project scope is typically defined by a project planning committee made up of project stakeholders
Project stakeholder - A person or group who is involved in or may be affected by project activities
Project scope includes:
Project overview
Project deliverables
Project objectives
Considerations and concerns
Change control plan
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63. Managing Projects (continued)
Project scope must be approved by the project sponsor
Project sponsor - The person who has ultimate authority over the project
Responsible for ensuring that the project is aligned with the organization's business goals
Not typically involved in day-to-day activities
Project manager - The person who leads the project team and is assigned the authority and responsibility for overseeing the project and meeting the project’s objectives
The project manager is selected after the project scope is defined and approved
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64. Managing Projects (continued)
Project manager responsibilities include:
Developing and maintaining a project plan
Directing project activities
Creating project status reports
Preparing and participating in project reviews
Resolving project plan deviations
Resolving and escalating, if necessary, issues that pertain to the project to management
Administering project change control
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65. Managing Projects (continued)
Project plan - A summary document that describes the project, its objectives, and how the objectives are to be achieved
For smaller projects, may consist of scheduling a request and documenting a simple To Do list
For larger projects, a more formal approach is taken
Work breakdown structure - A task oriented breakdown of the work to be done. Used to:
Logically arrange the tasks to be completed
Define milestones
Assign resources to tasks, create schedules, estimate costs
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66. Managing Projects (continued)
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67. Managing Projects (continued)
A critical project manager responsibility is communicating on a regular basis with all interested parties
Project status reports typically include the following:
Accomplishments this period
Accomplishments planned next period
Resources required next period
Considerations and concerns
An updated project plan
Ongoing communication—before, during, and after the project—is critical to a project’s success
Failing to communicate will almost always result in mismanaged expectations and dissatisfaction
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68. Managing Projects (continued)
Technical professionals can learn about project management by:
Observing how projects are run
Trying to understand the keys to project management success
Being an active participant when working on a project team
If you are interested in being a project manager:
Take advantage of training that is offered where you work
Seek out self-study opportunities
Ask a seasoned project manager to serve as your mentor
Serve as a deputy, or assistant, to another project manager
With a better understanding of projects you can begin initiating projects aimed at implementing your ideas
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69. Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost benefit analysis – A technique that compares the costs and benefits of two or more potential solutions to determine an optimum solution
A cost benefit analysis can be simple or quite complex
Because of the time and skill required, the cost of performing a complex cost benefit analysis can be considerable
Companies typically offer guidelines that determine the level of detail required
Guidelines consider factors such as the size, cost, and impact of the proposed solution
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70. Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis (continued)
In its simplest form, a cost benefit analysis uses only financial costs and financial benefits
Financial costs may be:
One time (nonrecurring)
Ongoing (recurring)
A more sophisticated approach to cost benefit analysis attempts to place a financial value on intangible costs and benefits
Some companies assign a numeric value to intangible benefits
Intangible benefits are important and must be taken into consideration
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71. Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis (continued)
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72. Conducting a Cost Benefit Analysis (continued)
The end result of a cost benefit analysis is the identification of the best solution to a business problem, given two or more proposed solutions
It answers the questions:
Which of the proposed solutions is the best solution?
Is the proposed solution worth the cost?
The key to whether a solution is worth the cost lies in the goals of the organization
Each company must decide what benefits (tangible and intangible) are worth to their organization
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73. Calculating Return on Investment
Return on investment (ROI) - A technique that measures the total financial benefit derived from an investment—such as a new technology project—and then compares it with the total cost of the project
ROI = Net Benefits / Project Investment
A simple ROI uses only financial costs and benefits
Calculating ROI can be much more complex as benefits can also be intangible
Intangible benefits are important and must be taken into consideration
ROI typically states the return on investment in percentage terms.
ROI% = Net Benefits / Project Investment X 100
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74. Calculating Return on Investment (continued)
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75. Calculating Return on Investment (continued)
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76. Calculating Return on Investment (continued)
Some companies determine the time it takes to recover an investment when calculating ROI
Payback period - The period of time over which the benefits of an investment are received
Payback Period = Project Investment / Net Benefits X 12 Months
Some companies establish guidelines relative to the use of payback period when making purchasing decisions
If the payback period is less than six months, purchase the product immediately
If the payback period is greater than six months, consider the purchase in light of other budget expenditures
If the payback period is greater than one year, consider the purchase in a future budget
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77. Calculating Return on Investment (continued)
ROI can be a complex and time-consuming calculation and is therefore typically reserved for larger technology investments
In its simplest form, however, ROI is a useful way to communicate the worth of even a small investment
ROI answers the questions:
What do I get back (in return) for the money I am being asked to spend (invest)?
Is the return worth the investment?
Calculating ROI becomes easier as you develop the skills needed to identify and communicate costs and benefits in financial terms
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78. Chapter Summary
Whether a person works for a small or large corporation, some business skills are useful and increasingly required
Basic business skills can be learned on-the-job, through self-study, or in the classroom
Listening, communicating, writing
These and other skills are relatively universal and can be used regardless of a person’s chosen profession
Customer service, process management, problem solving, project management, conflict management, time management
Skills such as financial management and human resource management are also important and become more important as people advance in their careers
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79. Chapter Summary (continued)
People working in a help desk hear day-in and day-out from customers who are having trouble using technology
They have a unique opportunity to support the goals of business by using what they learn to:
Eliminate or minimize the impact of problems
Identify improvement opportunities
To do this, technical professionals must learn to use:
Data to identify and quantify improvement opportunities
Techniques such as trend and root cause analysis
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e

80. Chapter Summary (continued)
Presentations are an important form of communication in today’s business world
They are inevitable if you want to communicate your ideas and, more importantly, have those ideas accepted and acted upon
Making a presentation is not an exact science, but there are proven steps that can be taken to ensure success
The more often you present and the more varied the setting, subject matter, and audience, the more comfortable you will be
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e

81. Chapter Summary (continued)
Advanced business skills are increasingly critical skills for more senior technical professionals
Managing projects
Conducting a cost benefit analysis
Calculating return on investment (ROI)
The need for these skills may vary from company to company
A basic understanding of these concepts will enable you to make the most of learning and growth opportunities
To acquire these skills, some study, even self-study, is needed along with experience
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e

82. Chapter Summary (continued)
The business world has changed and technical professionals must change as well
By acquiring and using business skills, technical professionals can:
Expand their opportunities
Have more control over their career
Rather than always being told what to do and how to do it, technical professionals with business skills can:
Propose new and better solutions
Participate fully in bringing their ideas to life
A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk Professional, 2e